Wendy W Fok, founder and creative director of WE-DESIGNS, is one of the most brash digital fabrication designers working today. Her firm’s creative projects have run the gamut from psychedelic Times Square billboard takeovers to an innovative rethinking of Las Vegas mega casinos.

When she’s not working on one-of-a-kind wonders—like flower-shaped lamps crafted from used respirator masks—she’s busy mining her imagination for the next big idea. Fok says the best location for tapping into her creative wellspring is 38,000 feet in the air somewhere between New York and Shanghai or, as a Master Scuba Diver, 130 feet underwater. The beauty of a transoceanic flight, says Fok, is that it provides “15 hours of pure silence, the best moment for me to get my sketchbook and draw out thoughts.”

If you look back at how architecture has usually been approached, it’s one man and his name on the firm. Then a bunch of apprentices do all the flunky work.

Fok’s thoughts tend to be big ones that draw a crowd—and A-list clients. So what’s the method to her madness? As she explains, it’s not about her or what’s happening on her sketch pad—it’s about what happens when she assembles a team of materials experts, spatial designers, and even a few hackers. The goal for the creative crews she pulls together is to extend the scale of the core idea into something much more complex, interactive, and yes, cool.

WIRED Brand Lab: What was the first project that sparked your interest in design?

Wendy Fok: I got my motorcycle license when I was 15. I’m very into sport bikes. The first bike I ever got I kind of took apart. My mother owned a high-end detailing shop, so I had access to a full-size airbrushing studio. I had a couple of guys help me and teach me the mechanics of it. I learned about fiberglassing, how to put things in stencils, and did that first project through various iterations. Afterward it was shown at a Vancouver art gallery. It was one my favorite projects. I still have it stored in Vancouver.

WBL: What themes, if any, have informed your style over the years as a creative architect?

WF: I consider myself creative, but I don’t actually want to be considered an architect. Traditionally, architects are known to be a one-shade-of-color service provider. In the field of design, I think you need a lot more players to get a project done. In architecture right now, there is a larger discussion about understanding how to bring in different players and collaborate. Whereas if you look back over the past 20 to 30 years at how architecture has usually been approached, it’s one man and it’s his name on the firm. Then a bunch of apprentices do all the flunky work for him and he gains all the notoriety.

WBL: What different philosophy did you bring into WE-DESIGNS?

WF: I think architecture should be more along the lines of a creative agency, where players from different fields influence the build space. And with the prevalence of digital means and different platforms, you could also work with people around the world.

WBL: What draws you to modular design work?

WF: Architecture is traditionally a one-off. You don’t really think of it as a huge industrial production chain. One reason I like modularity is that it allows you to actually make things that could essentially scale up or down and have the probability of being more than one thing. I think that has huge potential, and it forces you to look at architecture and the process as something closer to product design or industrial design. Ironically, going back to my first motorcycle, it’s about having a production chain that generates multitudes of an object.

WBL: Where can we see these themes in your work?

WF: We’re doing modular housing tailored for emerging countries. Resilient Modular Systems is a recent project, but that was probably six to eight years of research into forms and molds. It needs to be distributed at a scale that could be produced in countries that don’t have enough means to make it. So having the ability to generate multiple options of one thing attracts me. The ease of production appeals too; having a kit made of parts is much easier than having a one-off building. I think at the core of myself, I’ve never been super-interested in building a lot of one-off architecture.